SULTAN MEMET

Composer, Vocalist, Robab and Sota Player

A living treasure of Muqam Central Asian classical music, Maestro Sulran Memet was born in 1944 in Ghulja, a border town in East Turkistan, the homeland of the Uyghurs. In 1962 he emigrated to Almaty, and later moved to Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan where he joined the Uyghur Muqam Ensemble, which was a part of the Uzbekistan State Radio-Television Cooperation. He also served as Muqam Beshi for the Uyghur Twelve Muqam, led by a group of famous Uyghur composers, among them Sultan Murat Rasamov and Ghopur Dinghulu. By the 1990s, he had produced more than 400 songs, many of which were dedicated to the Uyghur people. He has performed at multiple international events in the U.S., at Boston University, Indiana University (2007, 2012), and on Capitol Hill. In 2005, his first international album, “Vatan” (Homeland), was released in the US. He created a special eight-hour program of Uyghur songs for European Radio Broadcasting services. Master Sultan Memet is famous worldwide for his performances of Uygur Muqam, a distinctive set of melodic patterns, and for his renditions of the folk songs of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, France, and the United States. He is revered by Uyghurs and world music connoisseurs as one of the leading musicians in his field, and as a champion of the music and culture of his homeland, known as Sharqi Turkistan (East Turkistan).